BIOMECHANICS OF HEART FAILURE WITH PRESERVED EJECTION

Abstract

Heart failure is the leading disease in morbidity and mortality worldwide. Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) contributes to nearly half of heart failure cases. However, the understandings of the HFpEF disease progression and biomechanics characterization and evolution during disease are still poor. There are also some shortcomings of current cardiac function parameters in evaluating HFpEF, such as the preserved ejection fraction. Therefore, there is an urgency to improve the understanding of the disease. The hypothesis for the thesis was that HFpEF myocardium with hypertrophic remodeling has significantly altered biomechanics, which correlates with morphology changes and LV function alterations. Several studies were designed to investigate the HFpEF pathogenesis progression during hypertrophic geometry remodeling, character the myocardial biomechanics, and evaluate the LV cardiac function parameters.